Need for Speed: Payback

The hours I managed to get in on gaming this weekend all went on EA's most recent foray into NFS territory.

The game is an interesting one whilst at the same time a fairly disappointing one.

Structure:
It follows a similar template as the previous reboot attempt in giving players an open city to explore. The best way to describe it is NFS gameplay in a Burnout Paradise set up sprinkled with Forza Horizon sensibilities. You have a mixture of 3 or 4 main race types such as races, drifting or escapes and within each type a questline of 5-7 events that further the story. Once cleared you move onto the next until all are done and a key event pushes you on in the map to another series of these events. The roads a peppered with mini things to do such as speed traps, drifting stretches, billboards and jumps.

Visuals:
It's a fairly generic looking game stylistically. The entire game takes place in a generic Vegas like bowl and entirely in daylight and dry weather. Despite this, the actual visual quality is very high. It builds off the work in the previous game but is more balanced out. I'm on the PC version and can pretty much hit 4K/60fps consistently bar some dips when things get hectic so it's solid stuff too.

Gameplay:
I may be wrong but I feel it's a lengthy game that I'm getting most of the way through I think as I'm now in the third distinct region of three. The cars veer away from the last games handling a bit more to that of The Run. The main issue is how repetitive it all feels along with the weak impression the game gives thanks not only to yet another poorly delivered story element but how that interrupts the gameplay flow sometimes mid-mission. Broadly though you have the usual series handling and it's responsive and varied enough between vehicles though I prefer chase cam for this as in car can sometimes have the view obscured by too much of a focus of flare effects etc.

Overview:
It's structurally solid and plays alright. I think the reviews have been overly harsh born less out of the gameplay being poor and more how the game fails in two areas. The first is how it's a jack of all trades and master of none. The game still has no unique thing it brings beyond the incredibly tiresome police chases that continue to be the series low point. Everything else is done better elsewhere so all you get is competence. The second is wrongful marketing, the game presented itself as NFS meets Fast and Furious with its trailers focused on heists and big budget action when the actual game offers little to nothing of the sort. The few missions that even touch on this do so via cutscenes so there's room for disappointment coming in with the wrong expectations. For the right price though and taken on an as is basis it's much better than the previous game and a solid time killer.

Where it got most of its stick was for its loot box based car upgrades that rely on luck and chance to get the parts you need. loot boxes are earned in game but can also been purchased for real money. This would be all well and good most games have loot boxes these days but normally not ones tied to progression in a mostly single player game.

Think of this as star wars battlefronts 2s car obsessed cousin, the game requires a hell of a lot of grind ( If you don't want to spend real money). Their are points later on in the game where you have to replay races over and over to get enough in-game currency to buy a loot box, that has a very small chance of giving you the card you need.

As for the online its all uncapped and as its been out a bit now if you don't have maxed out cars you can pretty much forget it.

I think either the game must have been patched to reduce the loot box element or it plays out differently if you're seeking to complete the main game rather than max out your stats. I'm definitely getting into the back end of the main campaign now and every upgrade I've had has been a better one than the car had fitted whilst races have all been pretty easy to win so I've not felt any real presence of in-game or cash required loot boxes in the game.